THREE HEADWINDS IMPACTING THE FUTURE OF MBA PROGRAMS: AN AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVE Nick Barter & Evan Douglas

Griffith Business School

Griffith University

Queensland, Australia

Overview

What is the problem for MBA providers?

◦ Declining demand due to declining value proposition

Three strong headwinds we are sailing against

◦ The social imperative of Sustainability

◦ The increasing digital literacy of our clientele

◦ Unmet thirst for meeting client’s needs

What should be done about these to ensure the survival of MBA providers?

What are we doing currently on these fronts at Griffith?

The problem facing MBA providers

Declining student numbers

◦ Expensive tuition fees

◦ Ambiguous evidence that MBA is a good investment

◦ Rise of alternative sources of business information

- Coursera, Wikipedia, and googled information

- Business experience with more savvy co-workers

◦ The decline of relevancy of MBA course content for

- Sustainable development

- Practical application

- Self-employment

◦ Increasing time poverty of our customers

- Unwilling to absorb material on a ‘just-in-case’ basis

The ‘path-dependence’ problem

We arrived here via an historical path

◦ MBA was invented to qualify ‘business administrators’

◦ Based on 19th century scientific management philosophy

- Profit maximization was the sole goal

◦ 1959 Gordon & Howell (and Pierson) reports were critical

- Need for softer side => business ethics, leadership

◦ 1988 Porter & McKibbin investigation of MBA curricula

◦ 2002 Mintzberg & Gosling, Pfeffer & Fong papers critical

◦ Global Financial Crisis – MBA graduates implicated

◦ Criticism continues to present day

- We are not teaching what managers want to know

- Nor delivering in their preferred format for learning

Headwind #1: Sustainability

Sustainability is not just nice, it is necessary now

◦ Profit maximization is no longer appropriate

◦ Corporate Social Responsibility is now expected

Sustainable development is about enabling economic growth and human progress

◦ The environment does not exist as a sphere separate from human actions, ambitions, and needs

◦ Rather than being a challenge to business, sustainable development is a core requirement for business strategy.

Consequently the challenge of sustainability is actually a business growth challenge

◦ We must seek business growth within a context of ensuring inclusiveness, reduced inequality and human progress.

Incorporating Sustainability

Shifting social mores now require and expect CSR

◦ Investors now preferring ‘sustainable’ companies

◦ Employment in ‘sustainable’ firms and organisations

◦ Consumers increasingly preferring ‘sustainable’ firms.

◦ Suppliers preferring to be associated with ‘sustainable’ firms

Candidates will choose programs that better equip them for employment and career advancement in CSR companies

Sustainability must become thematic in MBA programs

◦ No longer take short-horizon profit-maximizing focus

◦ Incorporate social and environmental issues into decisions

◦ Integrate longer-horizon CSR focus into all courses

Headwind #2: The Digital Revolution

Universities are no longer the store of knowledge

Digitally-stored knowledge can be accessed

◦ More quickly – waste less time

- We read faster than we speak

- Avoid travel time (and annoyances)

◦ More relevant to immediate needs

- Avoid required courses not considered relevant to needs

- Just-in-time rather than just-in-case

◦ More inexpensively

- Little or no monetary cost

But there is an enormous volume of information available

◦ Where to start, which path to follow?

Our role is ‘Packaging’ knowledge

Sifting

◦ Through the mountain of business information, opinion, data and case studies, including recent research that may be difficult reading for aspiring managers

Selecting

◦ Choosing which elements are most important for our courses and which elements can be taken as already understood

◦ Translating research findings into common parlance such that they are appropriate to business practice

Sequencing

◦ Putting these in an order of delivery that is most conducive to learning and retention of the information by aspiring managers

MBA delivery modes

Full-time face-to-face cohort

◦ Traditional format in classroom, weekly classes

◦ Student have minimal management experience

- Little or no prior business knowledge

Part-time face-to-face cohort

◦ Week-night classes for students who work full-time

- Have greater knowledge of business practice

Executive mode,

◦ Monthly distributed-block classes on weekends

- Candidates have the most knowledge of business practice And a greater need to customize knowledge …

Delivering the Package

The ‘Body of Knowledge’ (BOK) must be accessible on-line

◦ Supplied in ‘chunks’ not monoliths or monologues

◦ Use multi-media – Talking heads; YouTube; Websites, etc

Treated as ‘prior reading’ before class sessions

Reduce face-to-face time to ½ of previous time

◦ I.e. Adopt ‘blended learning’ format – both OL and F2F

Use F2F sessions for application of BOK to specific management decision problems

◦ Including those brought forward by class members

◦ Capture these on video for later viewing

Supplement with on-line chats, collaborate workshops

◦ Synchronous and non-synchronous communication

Differing Needs of Cohorts

Cohort   

Cohort needs

Full-time face-to-face MBA student with 2+ years of business experience

Part-time face-to-face MBA student with typically 5-10 years business experience

EMBA student with >10 years mid- to senior-level business experience

Knowledge Greatest Median LeastCredentials Greatest Median Least

Social networking Greatest Median LeastBusiness networks Least Median Greatest

Discretionary time Least Median Greatest Not testing patience Least Median Greatest

Knowledge specificity

Least Median Greatest

Headwind #3: Incentivizing Academics Academics are creatures of habit, and many are nearing

retirement age

◦ Reluctant to change teaching material or teaching methods

◦ Opportunity cost of time spent revising teaching materials

Performance incentives in business schools are related to research grants and publications in high-status journals

◦ Teaching quality must simply surpass minimal standards

Also little incentive to spend time listening to business people and their views on the curriculum

◦ Business views are often disparate, mutually conflicting

◦ Bureaucratic internal process to change curriculum

◦ Rewards for changing curriculum are distant, if at all

What is the solution to this?

Increased incentives needed to make course material:

◦ More practical and applicable to business decision making

◦ More digitally accessible and more efficiently delivered

A different performance metric for MBA teachers?

◦ AACSB Academically Qualified – Professional Teachers

◦ Exclude from ‘Research Active’ denominator

◦ Encourage and support consulting income for these

◦ Awards for currency and digitalisation of teaching materials

A greater proportion of ‘Professionally Qualified’ teachers

◦ Business Practitioners who are highly respected in their subject areas

- Guest presentations by CEOs, Entrepreneurs, etc.

The MBA as a stand-alone award, outside the University?

Currently MBA programs are charged their ‘fair share’ of University overheads◦ Library

◦ Car parks

◦ Cafeterias

◦ Computer Laboratories

◦ Large lecture theatres

◦ Marketing efforts geared to attracting undergraduate and international students

◦ 40% of salaries provided for research activity

Most of these are of little benefit to MBA students…

What is Griffith University doing?

Re-developed all MBA courses on theme of Sustainability, Responsibility, and Asia-Pacific Focus.

Digitised all MBA course material for on-line delivery, concurrent with face-to-face delivery on campus in 2014

‘Chunked’ all course materials into 10-20 minute slide presentations with voice-overs

Provided links to relevant YouTube and TEDtalk videos

Provided links to websites and digitised reading materials

Set up asynchronous chat rooms for student-to-student interaction with professor oversight

Set up periodic synchronous ‘Collaborate’ sessions for virtual face-to-face meetings and discussion of specific topics

Conclusion

MBA providers within Business Schools within Australian Universities are facing declining enrolments (generally)

◦ Griffith MBA enrolments are now rising, against the trend

MBA programs need to revise course material to reflect the sustainable development paradigm

Hard copies of textbooks and course materials are obsolete

◦ All course materials need to be provided on-line (and free)

Contact time for F2F classes needs to be reduced by half

◦ With prior reading & viewing of course materials

◦ Use F2f time to apply and synergise course materials

Incentivise MBA instructors to update, digitise and apply course materials to business decision problems.